


Tongue Twisted

by Badgermole



Series: A Failure to Communicate [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aphasia, Backward Talking, Echolalia, Gen, Logan Cares, Selective Mustism, They all have speech issues, stressed out Roman, videos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-15 18:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15419190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badgermole/pseuds/Badgermole
Summary: Roman has been overly stressed recently leaving him stuck talking in reverse which leads to him being more stressed out, which leads to talking in reverse, which leads…Frustrated and unable to communicate with anyone, he locks himself away in his room. His fellow sides and host were not going to let that slide.





	1. I See a Red Door and I Want to Paint it Black

Roman was a mess. His hair was a mess. His costume was a mess. His room was a mess. It was a mess. It was _all_ a mess.

It had been far too long since that last video had been uploaded to Thomas’ channel. The fans were going to get antsy with all the promises of the new Cartoon Therapy and Sanders Sides videos but they had nothing to show. Everyone on their side was trying to do damage control, trying to balance the desire to rush it out to fans while also producing good quality content.

Roman was sure Virgil hadn’t said anything to anyone the whole week, his own personal anxiety as well as Thomas’ was overloading him. A nonverbal hiding Virgil definitely didn’t help the Sanders Sides video where he was needed to actually be present and participating. Patton was staying optimistic for the group. He’s echoing would act up from the stress but those times were few and far between. Logan was constantly hunched over his carefully planned schedules constantly moving things around. Script writing had taken an extra day, shifting everything a day. Personal emergencies arose for the actors, another day pushed back. The comfortable buffer Logan had devised had slowly disappeared and was now in negative days.

And Roman, well Roman had barricaded his door and refused to come out. The first couple of lost days he could deal with. That’s why the buffers were there. But then it was Friday and they had literally nothing. Roman had been giving 110% for these projects. He stopped sleeping at some point. He couldn’t exactly remember when.

In an attempt to soothe the creative side, Logan explained that the published videos were only a small representation of the work. “If you compare the…distance…the length of a video online to the entire amount of time from idea inception through filming and…correcting, the ratio is wildly in favor of the latter.”

Regardless of how calm and caring the tone was, at least what passed as caring from Logan, Roman was at the end of this rope. The pressure had been building, slowly crushing him. He snapped.

"Retteb dennalp evah dluohs uoy llew! Wonk uoy, uoy no lla si siht. Smelborp eseht gnivah eb t'ndluow ew yad trats ruoy neht reilrae detrats dah samohT fi!" Roman spewed, the words a backward mess.

Logan may not have known exactly what was being thrown at him but he could figure out the gist of it. Roman was blaming Logan. He knew, in part, that the blame could fall to him but also there were too many variables for him to accurately predict the amount of time needed for these things. Logan had repeatedly learnt that there was never enough time.

Aside from the blame Logan felt was at least mildly logical, he knew that Roman had needed to explode. It was better to have him go off on Logan than the others. He could handle it, or rather he could handle it better than the others.

Minutes passed as Roman shouted, turned red in the face, and waved his arms about gesturing angrily. Finally he calmed, or at least tired himself out, and stomped off to his room. That was the last time any of them had seen him.

Within the first hour, the others could hear things being thrown about and crashing to the floor. There wasn’t much they could do. Logan recommended that they focused on the completion of the videos. It was the only way for Roman to relax. So Roman tore his room apart in a blind rage. The red of his room driving him mad like a bull with matadors.

 

Now Roman was sprawled out on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was the one thing that had been left untouched by his war path. The Disney posters were either ripped entirely from the wall or hung flopped over itself. Playbills were everywhere, covers bent and pages crinkled. Clothes still attached to hangers hung off the back of his chair or were rolled into a crinkled pile on his bed. A few bulbs on the string lights had broken after being ripped from the walls. The space Roman was lying in was only clear because he had flopped down and made a snow angel.

Around him lay a mountain of crumpled papers filled with horrible no good ideas. The towering piles around him mocked his inadequacy. Even his writing was becoming infected with his backward disease. A great idea would appear in his mind and after catching it in the written form, he would notice the blob of letters and words displayed incorrectly. Sure he could hold it to a mirror and read it that way, but that wasn’t the point. Never before had this horrible thing that plagued him ever evolved. Never before had he gotten stuck.

Roman groaned and covered his face with his arm.

Three short precise knocks came from the other side of Roman’s red door. Logan.

Roman let out another groan. He had unintentionally gone off at Logan who was just trying to help. Even though Roman wanted to lay on the floor silently wishing Logan to go away, he knew the other side would not leave until Roman answered. What even was he supposed to say? He couldn’t say anything!

Logan repeated his knock after receiving no answer. Roman slowly say up on his elbows. Logan made some grumbling noises followed by an almost inaudible, “Please open the door.”

That got Roman up and striding for the door. ‘Please’ was not a common word in Logan’s vocabulary. Logan was able to knock twice before Roman pulled the door open. The logical side seemed to have been startled by the interruption in his knock, or it could have been the disheveled peasant look that Roman currently had.

Logan was quick to recover though, stroking his tie once. “I understand recently you have been under an infinitesimal amount of pressure lately.” Logan paused and gave a horribly awkward smile. Roman let a small smile flash across his face, Logan was trying to be funny which did not happen every day.

“In all seriousness, the pressure has greatly impacted your speech,” Logan returned to his always serious face. “Our speech is not something that is easily controlled, the brain is a complicated…” Logan bit his tongue slightly. He had gone through this multiple times downstairs with the others to make sure his tone and words were alright. This was supposed to be about successfully comforting Roman.

“Nagro?” Roman offered.

Logan nodded his head, though Roman wasn’t sure if he actually understood or simply wanted to move past it. “There is also the complication that we are not exactly real people. Therefore you should not feel as though it is a failure that you cannot currently access a more normal speech pattern. Nor should you take all the blame of what is going on with….the videos.”

Roman nodded slowly. If he could have, Roman would have let Logan know that he was doing alright at this comforting thing.

“More directly to the point,” Logan straightened his glasses and stood straighter. “To help with your feeling of…being alone, I have found something to help with your predicament.”

Roman raised his eyebrows. Logan was smart but he doubted that he could have found a cure for Roman within such a short time.

“It is not a cure,” Logan admitted while reached for the phone in his pocket. “I believe this will be a satisfactory substitute though.”  

Logan placed the phone in his hand and motioned Roman closer. He clicked on one of the few apps on his phone. ‘There was no need for all that nonsense on a phone,’ Roman remembered Logan saying. The app was not one Roman recognized and it was definitely a new addition to the phone.

“This is a recording app which allows for the user to record their voice and have the audio played back in reverse.” Logan motioned to the simple controls.

Roman was frozen in shock. An app for him? Logan had given him an app so he could communicate. “It is like a translator one would use if they went to a foreign country, if you think in a….broad sense.” Roman nodded absently looking over the interface.

Logan took Roman’s hand and placed the phone in it. Logan never touched. Logan never let others touch his phone.

“You may try it, if you want.” Logan said after what could have only been minutes of silence as Roman gawked at the iPhone before him as though it was some alien lifeform.

Roman tapped the record button and whispered into the phone. Once the recording was done, Roman clicked the reverse button and held the phone toward Logan.

“Thank you Logan. You are a truly, truly great friend.”


	2. Lights, Camera, Action

The app immediately lifted the mood within the Mindscape.

Through the use of some imagination magic and the snap of his fingers, Roman fixed up his room while Logan stood in his doorway. He left the Disney posters for himself to do by hand. They meant far too much to him to simply snap it done. Even in his outburst, he had mostly left them untouched. Aside from coming undone from the wall, none came away with rips or seams.

Logan’s phone was still clutched in his one hand as he finished taping the last poster to the wall. “Let us go and greet the others with this joyous news Logan!” The app chirped out, the excitement in Roman’s voice not at all lost in translation.

Logan stiffly nodded as Roman rushed down the hall. The scene vaguely reminded him of one of those Disney princesses frolicking with the wildlife in a meadow. He let the corners of his mouth rise slightly once Roman disappeared, hopping down the stairs. Of course the app didn’t solve the problems relating to the video schedule, but Logan did care that his fellow side was okay.

Before following the creative side at a more moderate and appropriate pace, Logan stopped before Virgil’s locked door. “Roman has been aided in his communication ability. It has the desired effect of lifting his mood and providing a distraction from the difficulties currently at hand.” Logan nervously adjusted his glasses and glanced at the purple blob that stood in his peripheral vision. Virgil had his own anxiety disorder in addition to his selective mutism to deal with, but Logan hoped that the information that Roman was doing better would aid in Virgil’s own situation. He nodded slightly as he replayed the few sentences. His tone was caring.

Not waiting for a reply, Logan began the trek down the stairs back into the living room. Roman’s and Patton’s voices had filled the room. There was a lightness there now which had been absent for far too long, something that Logan would never admit he had missed.

The two more flamboyant sides were huddled together on the couch, while Roman would say phrases and have the app reverse for him. Patton wrapped Roman in an enormous bear hug and placed a quick kiss on the other’s forehead.

Giggling started to erupt from the two of them as Logan made his way into the kitchen. All the strong feelings, even the positive ones, were a bit overwhelming for the logical side. He used the pass as an acknowledgement of their mood and to stay shielded in the kitchen afterward.

Logan poured himself some water as an excuse to stay in there and leaned in what only Logan would call a relaxed position. Patton had gotten to the point where his excitement was causing him to repeat Roman.

Rather than dampen the mood as it could often do, both were struck with an even worse laughing fit. Roman recorded himself and Patton’s repeat and played them back. Roman had started quoting Disney lyrics, to which Patton would happily cheer and burst into the song once the app revealed what had been said.

Logan let a larger smile grace his face. It had been tough on everyone. Patton had been stressed but tried not to show it. It was commonplace for Virgil to hide away and everyone knew how to handle that. Roman, on the other hand, had never been so worked up that his backward speech replaced his normal. He had never locked himself away for days nor had he ever ripped apart his room. Appearance was an important value to him and Logan knew that to break such an important value as that, Roman had truly been pushed over a breaking point. That was why he had researched into this app.

An idea popped into Logan’s head. Forgotten by the others, Logan quickly sunk out to speak with Thomas.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

“Perfect.” Logan replied and with a curt nod to his host, he sunk back into the mindscape.

Logan popped up back in his room. He began to pace slightly, his hands held flat against his back. It wasn’t often that he paced, but feelings and providing more normal forms of comfort were still rather unexplored areas for him. Logan paused and pulled a binder from one of the shelves. He flipped through the pages with barely a glance but he finished the binder seeming to have found what he was looking for and returned it to the shelf. His pacing resumed.

Calm, Logan reminded himself gently. Anxiety found a way to Virgil regardless of whose it was. There was no need to burden the already overwhelmed side with more. Logan took his own advice and followed the 4-7-8 breathing exercise. This was good news like the app. There was no way he could misconstrue the words in such a way that Roman could be offended.

Logan quietly closed his door and started down the stairs. As he passed Virgil’s purple door though, he could see that door was ever so slightly ajar. The door was still within the frame, but it was slightly pushed back a hair. Logan had given a small nod as he passed.

Logan took one more deep breath at the top of the stairs before he walked down and stood before Patton and Roman. He let them finish their current recording before loudly clearing his throat.

“I have had an…epiphany…and informed Thomas. Thomas has approved of it.” Logan announced.

“You gonna share with the class?” App Roman raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Patton had calmed down from his excitement and nodded wanting to know more.

“Yes, it would be illogical to have such a….dangling plot….” Logan was quite sure his face had scrunched up in confusion like the two before him but he continued on anyway. “With the background of your current condition, I have found a video to quickly produce.”

“Geez Lo, I don’t think this is the time to be long winded.” App Roman quipped smiling at the obviously flustered side.

Logan ignored Roman’s statement and continued on with his planned speech. “Thomas has recently put out a call for famous quotes from various…mediums. Recall the game Joan and Talyn had created in part due to your backward speech sometimes bleeding over the consciousness bridge to Thomas?”

Roman nodded as the pieces clicked in his brain at what Logan was saying. Patton had started to bounce slightly in his seat.

“I advised that Thomas implement this….activity as a video to satiate the Fanders while the other larger videos are works in progress.” There was a light in Logan’s eyes as he saw the excitement spread across Roman’s face.

Logan had gotten Thomas to surround himself with people who were talking backward, all because Roman was stuck in reverse. Sure it wasn’t exactly a solution to the problem at hand. Roman was still backward and there was still a mountain of work to be done on the other videos, but this was for Roman.

“Won thgir uot guh dluoc I Lo dog!” App Roman said. Roman looked down confused. That didn’t sound right at all.

“Uhm, you may…I suppose.” Logan replied and awkwardly held his arms up.

Roman’s head snapped up. He had said it forwards. Goodness gracious, he was going to be okay. And Logan just said he could hug him!

Roman launched from the couch and wrapped Logan in a massive hug that sent the two tumbling to the ground. Logan’s arms were still held straight out not returning the hug. But eventually there were a few hesitant pats on Roman’s back and he knew that it was okay.

Patton let out a long awwwww and the sound of a camera shutter filled the quiet living room.

It was going to be alright.


End file.
